Remuneration
by College Fool
Summary: All power comes with a cost. Some costs are less monetary.  Conceptual Darker than Black crossover, complete as is. Fire Emblem, Blue Rose, Barnaby Brooks Jr., and Wild Tiger.
1. Chapter 1

The prompt was if NEXT were like the Contractors from _Darker Than Black._ Every time a Hero uses their power, a cost must be paid.

First chapter: Fire Emblem.

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><p>Nathan <em>hates<em> his Remuneration: it's so against his nature, his will, and the will of anyone else, that every time he feels it he hates and fears what he's about to do.

Nathan, you see, has to kiss a girl. And not just a peck, mind you, but with tongue.

It sounds comical. When forced to share with anyone, he makes it sound comical. But when it comes down to it, it's anything but.

Because while he's flamboyant to excess, Nathan _isn't_ attracted to women, any more than he's attracted to a toaster (or Antonio to him). To say the prospect is revolting exaggerates, but even when the Need presses hardest he remembers that what he's doing is supposed to be intimate, with someone to be cared about. Not just…

Not just anyone, familiar or stranger, willing or not. Antonio's fear comes from his younger days, when his powers were developing, when he didn't know what was going on, when he hadn't learned to hold back for a prepared safety. Back when the primary women in his life were his mother and his female friends, friends who were not prepared and did not understand or accept it and yet he still could not _not_.

Small blessing that his Remuneration didn't require sex. He would have been a rapist before making his first Million.

But now he is rich, and now he has learned how to put off the Need. Not indefinitely: the cost has to be paid. But now he has a Secretary who receives a substantial paycheck on the understanding of just what is required. It helps that she is a lesbian: equal opportunity policies be damned, he insisted. Caroline knows why he sometimes rushes to her out of nowhere and sweeps her off her feet in a deep french kiss, and so does her partner: besides the usual holiday cards and Christmas gifts, Nathan invites them both to dinner every week he has to use his powers. It may be a small apology, but it helps soothe his conscience.

It doesn't erase his guilt, though. Especially when Caroline is too far away, or circumstances too dire. He's only told one Hero his Remuneration, and that was only fifteen seconds before he stole Blue Rose's first kiss. She understood, bless her, but he still put together a college fund for her. Two other quick, desperate alleyway disappearances later saw her children and grandchildren also covered, even if she doesn't know that yet.

He knows he's throwing money around to allay his guilt. He knows that those who have to suffer him understand. And he knows that, all things considered, his actions as a hero do far more good than his cost, which is pretty minor.

But still, Nathan is the only Hero who feels... unclean after his Remuneration.


	2. Chapter 2

The prompt was if NEXT were like the Contractors from _Darker Than Black._ Every time a Hero uses their power, a cost must be paid.

Second chapter: Blue Rose

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><p>Some NEXT succeed despite their Remunerations: those who have to do extensive tasks, or self-harm, or other unproductive requirements, like the compulsion to punch someone, anyone (even one's self) in the face after making a metal fist.<p>

Blue Rose's Remuneration compliments her power. Every time Blue Rose makes and maintains ice, she loses her sense of feeling that lasts as long as the ice.

Instant, easy, simultaneous. So cold she can't feel cold, no pain, no hindrance. Just the freedom to use her power without feeling a thing…

…as if that were desirable. There is a reason that tactile sensation is so important, for your own sake.

Karina has to be _careful_ after she uses her powers. The difference between feeling nothing and there being nothing to feel is slippery, even more so when you're used to both. To not feel pain is not the same as to not be hurt: the list of 'accidents' that she had never noticed until later is too long. Her parents' doting isn't simply affection, but the real concern that she might have chewed into the side of her mouth again. At some point or another, every other Hero, even Dragon Kid, has been asked to ensure she is never left alone: they don't know the Remuneration itself, but they know to keep an eye out on and for her.

But the isolation of the body is only second to the isolation of the mind: there is good reason that sensory deprivation can be considered torture. Losing any of the senses is… disorienting. You have to rely on those others sense to carry the weight. The more you lose, the worse it is, and Karina is already at a one sense disadvantage.

You'd think it wouldn't matter often. It doesn't matter often.

But now, deep in the subway of Stern Bild, it does. As pillars of ice hold back a far worse fate for millions above and two people below, she's shivering in the vast cold darkness that she can neither see or feel. Her balance is swimming, and she can't even feel what her own arms are desperately clinging to by memory alone. Only three sense remain to secure her sanity in this endless darkness, and two are ruined by circumstance: the flu has ruined her smell, and taste as well.

The only lifeline from total oblivion is Tiger's voice. The rambling and repetition, so annoying normally, sounds more precious than her best performance. He's probably figured it out: his voice has grown raspy but still continues, just as it had ever since she cried for him not to leave despite his arms apparently having been around her. A position she might have fantasized about a day ago is now a desperate clinging to anything else in the darkness of senses, and with a grip she can't even feel. It's like cradling sand in a glove, never knowing when it was sliding off.

Even with someone as implicitly reliable as Tiger to hold her… it doesn't change how frightening it actually is to lose that sense. There are times Karina's Remuneration terrifies her.


	3. Chapter 3

The prompt was if NEXT were like the Contractors from _Darker Than Black._ Every time a Hero uses their power, a cost must be paid.

Second chapter: Barnaby Brooks Jr.

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><p>Barnaby's Remuneration must be a prank of the gods, because anyone else would have better taste. Every time Barnaby activates his Hundred Power, it's in the knowledge that the next time he falls asleep he will dream of his parent's murder.<p>

It's open for debate how much it matters. Even before his powers developed, he had the dream. Did Barnaby dream because of how often he thought back to that night? Or did Barnaby think back to that night because of his dreams?

Mr. Maverick had no answers, only advice: Barnaby's Remuneration could break him, or it could be used to spur himself to new heights. Perhaps it could do both.

Perhaps it did do both. His parents and their death flashed before him every time he wanted to quit, every time he might have been distracted by the prospect of a normal life. No relationship, however modestly pursued, could survive the dreams. Every punch, every kick, had a single memory behind their force. Even the hands on his own partner's throat.

But after Jake it… changed. The dreams came the same as old, but what they meant did not. The anger, the sorrow, and desperate need for vengeance that had accompanied him for so long left. Now when he saw the same images he… regret, certainly. But satisfaction at having delivered Justice. Acceptance. Remembrance. Yes, he still dreamed of his parent's murder, but now he also dreamed of everything else about them: the happier times, the sadder times, the times of family.

It's no longer a curse, or a reminder of the need for retaliation. It's simply a reminder of those he loved. He might miss it if they ever went away.

Sometimes Barnaby wonders if Kotetsu has the same Remuneration. Not dreaming of the murder of Barnaby's parents, of course, but rather dreaming of something sad that you can still take joy from. Sometimes, when the light shines just so, he remembers the wedding ring and wonders if Kotetsu sees his dead wife every night. It might explain some things about his partner if he did.


	4. Chapter 4

The prompt was if NEXT were like the Contractors from _Darker Than Black._ Every time a Hero uses their power, a cost must be paid.

Final Chapter: Kotetsu

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><p>Kotetsu doesn't dream of his wife. Kotetsu doesn't dream at all: he's far too busy otherwise. Kotetsu's Remuneration is far more cutting: Kotetsu remembers every failure perfectly whenever he closes his eyes.<p>

To say it's humbling would be an understatement. Every little white lie of a promise, every bungled arrest, every minor accident or major kerfuffle: anything and everything Tiger thought or was told he should have done differently, he remembers. Many have accused Tiger of not taking his failures seriously, but this can only be true in that he's far too busy remembering the others and tends to be distracting. No one in this world, bar perhaps God, can be more aware of their many failures. Kotetsu's had so many, he knows which ones matter.

But more than humility, this curse cuts. For all the inconsequential failures, the public property cases and the non-ideal interviews and the failed training simulations, there are the ones that Really Matter.

Missing his daughter's school play is one to make him wince. Two, actually: not only did he fail as a parent to show, he failed for breaking the promise he made as well. A lot of the ones about his daughter have that one-two punch. By comparison, his failure to trust in Barnaby about Jake remains a single flood of shame.

The failures cycle through by history. He's so familiar with the cycle he can predict his mood for the next weeks if nothing in real life interferes: failures from his childhood can be rather funny, in retrospect. The ones about property damage always bring a smile. Failures of more serious things, of criminals who escaped and lessons not learned, they drive him to try harder.

There's only one failure that still stops him. After it happened, he would break into tears every time the 'cycle' ended, a fact only hidden by the fact he ensured the timing was at home. Now a days, he calls Antonio well in advance: Antonio brings the beer, Kotetsu orders in food, and they drink and reminisce as Tiger closes his eyes and watches the his greatest failure as a Husband, watching his wife pass away while being unable to protect her.

Tears are rare now, though melancholy isn't. After her death comes the hard years of trying to be a father, trying to be a Hero, and only doing a middling job at either. There are too many broken promises to his daughter, and too few memories about why they were broken at the time. Successes don't count, after all. But eventually, a few hours and a few bottles of liquor later, he's back to remembering the time he failed to dig to China in the back yard, back when you could actually afford a backyard in Stern Bild.

Sometimes Kotetsu wonders if Barnaby has the same Remuneration. Not remembering Kotetsu's failures, of course, but Barnaby's own. A terribly short childhood of innocent errors, followed by decades of failure to find his parent's murderer. Sometimes, when the day is long and Bunny closes his eyes for a long breath, he remembers the young man's newfound sense of peace and wonders if Barnaby is just now adding a different sort of failure to his roster of memories. It might explain some things about his partner if he did.

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><p><em>Fin<em>

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><p>AN: The end. I liked how this turned out. Some unconventional, but not utterly emo, but not not trivial 'costs'.

I fully encourage anyone who'd like to do more for some of the other characters to feel free: I just couldn't think of any good ones I wanted to write.

And, as always, I will never understand people who favorite but not review a work.


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